3 HN users recommended this explainer3 months2018–2020score 3
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
Offered as the quick, clear explainer on US federal land ownership whenever land use in the West comes up.
CGP Grey explains what it means that a third of the United States is federally owned land. It describes the agencies that manage it and why so much of it is in the western states.
“You might enjoy CGP Grey's "What is federal land?" [0].” (HN, 2020)
Yeah CGP Grey had a god video about federal land ownership the majorty of land in western states is federal land. [this video] Its kind of ridiculous. how little control states have over the land within their own boarders.
You might enjoy CGP Grey's "What is federal land?" [0]. Making resources available to American industry is one of the government's purposes in owning it. There are certainly disagreements over how well that's balanced against other goals, or against the long term future. But it's not like it's inherently corrupt that federal land is fed into the economy. That's what it's for. [0] [this video]
Explains what federal land is and why government owns it
CGP Grey did an interesting video on the differences between the agencies that own federal land in the US: [this video] (Start from the beginning for more context)
Differences between agencies that own federal land
> [1] Bureau of Land Management - kind of like a national forest but where they care less about the land under their control. CGP Grey made a video on the topic recently: [this video]
Rent control is a bandaid that tries to fix fundamental systemic flaws and lack of planning by society. Problems: They do mention Oregon's land use laws. I didn't see it while skimming but (for west coast states) the land that is actually "state" instead of federal is also an issue (#1). However the biggest issue is that the Supply vs Demand curves for housing are simply insane. Demand is mostly dictated by jobs, and only slightly moderated by the quality of public transit and transportation infrastructure (mass transit AND freeways/parking included). As a nation the US has been housing constrained for at least 20 years, probably longer. Worse for a generation or two housing has been used as an investment rather than the cost center that it is; so all sorts of market incentives are massively messed up. Finally "career" jobs, which allow someone to live in the same house for their entire adult life more or less began a long slow death in the 1980s, which is the true beginning of the destruction of communities. Solutions to consider: Tax, based on land use opportunity cost/value. This should have a built in history consideration that gradually introduces rising land use potential over a number of years. (E.G. sliding window over 10 or 20 years) Tax, transparently, to fund infrastructure, and provide a place (website?) where someone can go to see what their tax dollars are actually being spent on. How they are getting value for services. Zone and re-zone and do urban development
Mentioned among sources about land use in western states
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